I like the part where US based firms are blamed for other country's strict rules and regulations making it financially impossible to run sweepstakes there.

This isn't Atari/Cryptic or even Paramount/CBS, its the country you live in, that prevents the sweepstakes from being fully international. Name one other MMO or US based company's sweepstakes that were fully international. I'm sure you'll find that the ones that have come to your country were in fact from that local/regional HQ of an international company, and not truly part of a multi-national competition.

The part I don't get, however, is why the EU hasn't moved to make one set of rules across all its membership countries and offer companies seeking to make competitions like this an easy way to reach all nationalities under the EU banner. Technically, that's the only reason all US gets a shot, and not just some states within it. Most "Continental US only" ones are because airfare is involved and no one wants to pay for flights from Alaska or Hawaii. But when I read that Germany got a green-light for this one, I can only shake my head and wonder why a lack of standardization of sweepstakes rules is so hard for others to grasp as the real culprit. I'm sure you'll find that the company actually running this sweepstakes has its European HQ in Germany, and is therefore able to include people of that nation - it can be held responsible for that country's rules and regulations if it has a presence there.

If you don't like being excluded, write to your government. Add your voice and encourage others to do so as well to the idea of unifying rule-sets so that you can participate in these. After all, THAT is who is preventing you from having access, not the corporations who cannot maintain a physical presence in every country. If there was a blanket EU rule-set which held a company operating in any one of its membership countries accountable in **all** membership countries it choses to do business with (not just the one it has a presence in), then I'm sure things would be a bit different.